NAME

iconv - convert between different codesets

SYNOPSIS

iconv [-cs] [-ffromcs] [-ttocs] [file ...]
iconv -l

DESCRIPTION

The iconv utility converts the files (or standard input, if none given)
from the encoding specified by fromcs, or the current locale's character
set as specified by nl_langinfo(CODESET), to the encoding specified by
tocs. If file is a single dash ('-') or absent, iconv reads from the
standard input. The result is written to standard output, diagnostics and
error messages are written to standard error.
The options are as follows:
-c Omit any characters that are invalid in the codeset of the in-
put file from the output. Normally, byte sequences that are no
characters in the input codeset cause iconv to abort with a
diagnostic message. If -c is given, they are still diagnosed
(unless -s is given as well) but skipped (byte-wise) on read.
-ffromcs Identify the codeset of the input file. Processing of IEEE Std
1003.1-2001 ("POSIX") Character Set Description Files is not
implemented. If this option is not given, the codeset of the
current locale is used.
-l Instead of codeset conversion, write a list of supported
codesets, separated by newline, to standard output, then exit
successfully.
-s Suppress any diagnostics written to standard error concerning
invalid characters (both in the input codeset and in the out-
put codeset, i.e. conversion information losses). Normally,
invalid input characters, files that end with an incomplete or
invalid character or shift sequence, and inconvertible charac-
ters are reported, the latter once per file and in a final
summary.
-ttocs Identify the codeset of the output file. See -f for semantics.

EXAMPLES

iconv -f latin1 -t utf-8 file.txt >newfile.txt

DIAGNOSTICS

Exit status is 0 on success, 1 on general failure, 2 if there is no known
way to convert between the codesets given, and 3 if the output buffer is
too small (implementation error, contact the developer in that case).

SEE ALSO

STANDARDS

The iconv utility is expected to conform to Version 3 of the Single UNIX
Specification. XSI is not supported. POSIX2_LOCALEDEF is not supported.
If neither -f nor -t are given, or their arguments are the same or
equivalent, input is passed through; invalid characters are not detected.
Implementation-specific behaviour is as described in this manual.

HISTORY

iconv appeared in MirOS #10.

AUTHORS

The iconv utility and this manual page were written by Thorsten Glaser
<tg@mirbsd.de>. MirOS uses codeset conversion routines from the Citrus
project.

CAVEATS

In the current implementation, if the output of a buffer is more than 16
times the input buffer size, currently 64 KiB, an error is returned.
The GNU extension of //TRANSLIT is not supported by Citrus iconv.
Each input file is handled as a separate conversion unit, and the shift
state is returned to inital after processing a file.
MirOS BSD #10-current November 1, 2006 1